Am I getting more worried about this than most other sheep farmers?

... and goats.

 Ahem!

 

romneymarsh:

Am I getting more worried about this than most other sheep farmers?

You may be worried but, see the thread on Better Regulation which clearly shows that we are all wasting our time protesting! The clever people of the EU and their donkey counterparts in the UK have devised a scheme to prove that a particular technology can be made to work.

We may claim that is unecessary and earlier threads have proven it to be unecessary, but once it has been proven to be 'useful' in animals it can then be argued that it will be useful in humans. I predict that within twenty years some people, somewhere will be forcibly EID'd.

 

 

I want to know what system of EID will work - my lot lose eartags for a pastime.

This is one of those European ideas that seems a good idea at first glance, complete traceability of all sheep in the EU for purposes of disease control yet the actual technicalities have never really been thought through.

Electronic ear tags are just as likely to be lost as the Mk 1 eyeballed version and apparently the bolus'd tags can also be expelled(?)

We have just been ear tagging our lambs whose numbers have washed off in the rain, we think we have identified the lambs correctly so why is lamb we think was marked 47 having a crafty drink from ewe 56?   

My wife, (who's the shepherd in the family) raised this with our (Conservative) M.P.

He passed the query to Geoff Rooker who's response was along the lines of; "It's EU policy, there's nothing we can do."

townie:

... and goats.

 Ahem!

 

But not deer!!!!!!!!

Yet............

townie:

... and goats.

 Ahem!

As I understand it, Townie, each member country has the option to apply for a derogation if the population of either sheep or goats is below de minimis levels.  I understand the UK would qualify for a derogation for goats.  Are British goat keepers just assuming Defra won't be requesting the derogation or do you have insider information that they won't?

I suppose ankle bracelets on offenders are already the first step towards human traceability.

Personally i think it is a marvellous idea no need for shepherds, just monitor sheep/animals from space satellite. And like the the car sat nav system any sheep not moving for 24 hours is deemed to be dead. Zap it with a laser and at a stroke carcass disposed of.

And of course the money making spin offs as in the DVLC. A full report of where the animal has been over it's lifetime sold to Tesco. Plus of course tied to met office data one could provide information to the RSPCA of which farmers left their sheep out on a cold night.

Wake up comrades the Soviet Union has gone. Long live the European Union. UK is a proud member state. ( Just a pity England does not exist in EU maps and documents) The general presidium (EC) of the EU is happy to emulate the Soviet Union, by having no elected officers.

Is there time to do an about face before the UK sleep walks in to oblivion.

 

Moi cynical

 

I don't know how true it is but aren't the individual flocks generally smaller in the contient. Also aren't the actual readers ment to be about as unreliable as the tags or boluses. Then there is the fact that the different systems I believe are not compatible with each other so what it would be like at markets and abbatoirs. It seems like the common market is designed to make it commonly harded to market your produce.

The thing I don't like is the fact the they say separate countries yet everytime they mention the UK or anyother country when they are refering to the EU they say member state. Where isn't the definition or a State "a territory of a federal republic or and area under the control of one political government." You can't help but wonder when they will just drop the member part and just call it a state of the EU

 

The worst thing about this scheme is that even though you know it's a waste of time and money, you will make me do it too!

I see FUW have put a petition on the No.10 website against EID.  They only mention that it is unsuitable on the grounds of cost and unworkability. No mention of the fact that there is absolutely no benefit to anyone (except the equipment manufacturers) in the whole exercise.

Quite what response they expect to get from the Office of the Prime Minister I don't know.  I won't be staking my life on it being any different to the responses I and others have received from MPs, MEPs , Better Regulation Taskforce etc., namely "EU policy.  Out of our hands."  If there was an EU directive that we should all slit our own throats would the response be the same? Probably!

I can't really see what difference those petitions actually make as they always end up with the long winded "We can't be bothered" or "We won't as we make money more money."

This whole business of EID is so full of holes, but it seems only the people on the ground have noticed! It must be another creation of a department to justify it's own purpose because nobody wants it!